


Not Today

by faithinthepoor



Series: Once Upon a Time [44]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 23:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3152894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during Save Henry</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Today

**Author's Note:**

> In my series this follows my [Fairytale Drabbles](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618763), [Mirror Mirror](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618771), [This Provincial Life](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618775), [Viviane or Nimue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618809), [Dreams and Wishes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618851), [All the Better To….](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619484), [Magic Keys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619497), [Curiouser and Curiouser](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619514), [Snow Blind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620280), [Spinning Straw](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620288), [Wooden Hearts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/621128), [Poisoned](http://archiveofourown.org/works/622526), [True Love and Other Curses](http://archiveofourown.org/works/625038), [Spellbound](http://archiveofourown.org/works/628806), [Over the Rainbow](http://archiveofourown.org/works/630076), [Facades](http://archiveofourown.org/works/632227), [Lost Girls](http://archiveofourown.org/works/636939), [Monstrosities](http://archiveofourown.org/works/640162), [Love and Lies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/652912), [Something Wicked this Way Comes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/665458), [Dreamscapes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/672345), [Homecomings](http://archiveofourown.org/works/676052), [Test Match](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682287), [Wishful Thinking](http://archiveofourown.org/works/697330), [Absent Friends](http://archiveofourown.org/works/771482), [Small Mercies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/773663), [State of Mind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/778498), [Good Intentions](http://archiveofourown.org/works/802589), [The Sins of Mothers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/820893), [Affairs of the Heart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/855926), [Power Plays](http://archiveofourown.org/works/942825), [Future Plans](http://archiveofourown.org/works/969035), [Crying Wolf](http://archiveofourown.org/works/982369), [The Eye of the Storm](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1004056), [Doomsday Devices](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1155836), [Villains](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1191873), [Attachments](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1223896), [Pain and Pixie Dust](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1284520), [Absences](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1387075), [Fighting Fires](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1951305), [Poor Unfortunate Souls](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2274636), [Balancing Acts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2399231) and [Dogs and Their Bones](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2489315)

Everything they have done has led to nothing, everything _she_ has done has led to nothing, and there is nothing fair about this outcome. She has shown that she is able to compromise and she has displayed unprecedented tolerance and restraint. She has slept on dirt while bugs crawled over her, she has partnered with her enemies, she has allowed Snow White to continue breathing, and she hasn’t ripped Emma’s heart out for breaking hers but none of her sacrifices have been rewarded. 

She has been careful and calm and in control. She has forced her hands to her sides so that she didn’t touch Emma and trigger magic that they couldn’t afford to deal with and she even managed this on the boat ride to Skull Island when she so desperately wanted to hold Emma’s hand. There were so close and yet so far from Henry and she wanted support and comfort from the only other person who could understand what she was feeling. Her first were so tightly clenched that her fingernails bit into her skin but she held firm as they traversed the water and still her actions meant nothing.

She managed to stay focused when, together, they had managed to eclipse the moon. Her body was throbbing with power and need, and the sweet taste of Emma’s Saviour magic filled all of her senses, yet she squashed it down. She did everything right. She did her best and once again her best has proven not to be enough.

As she cradles her son’s near lifeless body she feels defeated. Not just by Pan with his parlour tricks and mind games but by life itself. It is inconceivable that this could have happened, that Henry could have sacrificed himself in this way. It often frustrates her that no one give her credit for the type of boy that he is. She could have raised him differently. She could have raised him to be vindictive and cruel and to thirst for power but she didn’t do that. Right now she regrets the fact that she tried to raise him with love. If she’d raised him to be a monster he wouldn’t be in need of a preservation spell right now.

She would give anything to have him safe in her arms but the thought of raising him to be evil gives her pause. Alive and evil is definitely preferable to noble and dead but she wouldn’t change her boy. She may not be the best mother but she loved him as best she could. The thought that her love is toxic is not a new fear but from the moment she saw him she had no choice but to love him. He is her little prince and for him she has tried to vanquish the demons that rage inside of her.

He hasn’t always been grateful for her efforts, there are times when the best that she could hope was that he didn’t want her dead, but he loves her. He doesn’t love as deeply as she does, he’s not burdened with that curse, but he loves better than she is able to. She looks at her companions, at these others that Henry loves, and she is filled with hate. They claim to love him but they stand proud and ready to fight. They aren’t crippled by his loss. Not like she is.

She wants to rile and wail and unleash her anger until the walls of the cave crumble around them and this place where Henry died becomes their tomb. She would do it to, she would die here with the only two people she loves, if Henry’s sperm donor wasn’t here defiling what could be hallowed ground. Even the agony and peace of death is denied her. She can’t have what she wants so she will do what she must always do – she will fight. She will defeat the trickster and save her son.

“This preservation spell can keep him in this condition for a while longer, buy us time to get to Pan.” She is weak, she feels it in her body and her words lack power. The spell wasn’t difficult but curtailing her anger so that she could cast the spell safely required a large amount of her energy. 

“You were a Lost Boy. Any idea where he went?” She has been the one to do something actually useful and yet Emma’s focus is on Gold’s spawn.

“Well, I, I mean I know where he lived. Where his compound...”

She shouldn’t have to tolerate his presence, she certainly won’t tolerate his voice, “That's idiotic. We all know that. Think he's stupid enough to go back? Please.”

“Okay. Enough!” Emma was willing to engage him in conversation and yet silences her, it’s getting to the point where she doesn’t care if Neal will taint their tomb, she is a hairsbreadth from killing them all.

“Don't tell me what's enough. My son is dying!”

“ _Our_ son. So, yes, I know how you feel.”

“You have no idea what I feel. You have your parents. You have this,” she waves her hand in the interloper’s general direction, “person; a pirate who pines for you…you have everything and yet you claim to know what I feel? All I have is Henry and I'm not about to lose him because he is _everything_. Her voice breaks and betrays her. She doesn’t want to seem weak in front of Emma. Not now. Not ever.

Emma bends down beside her and she can taste the pity in the air. “You're right. I don't know what you feel. So what do you want to do? You want to run the show? Run it. How do we save Henry?”

“I don't know.” It’s the horrible truth and it means she is a pitiful as she feels.

Neal speaks up, startling her, “Even if we can find Pan, he was powerful before, with Henry's heart. I-I don't know if we can hurt him.” Her world had contracted to Emma and her son and it comes as a surprise that Neil is still there. She scans the cave in search of other threats that she may have failed to notice and in doing so she sees Emma’s sword.

“Yes, we can. Look,” she draws their attention to the blood on the blade. “You nicked him. He can bleed. We can hurt him. And if we can hurt him, we can kill him. And we will.”

They don’t protest and it appears that Emma is going to make good on her promise to let Regina lead. She didn’t expect that. To be honest she didn’t even think that Emma was capable of handing over the reins. Emma might be a reluctant hero but her inane parents prattle on at her about her role, about her destiny as the Saviour, and at least on some level Emma buys into that propaganda. Even now, in allowing Regina to make decisions, Emma is leading by default. 

The child of the Charmings makes her presence known with words and decisions but the eyes that beseech Regina to do something are the eyes of a woman that those two idiots will never understand. Emma’s body is in tune with the look in her eyes. It is tense and it is demanding. It wants something from Regina above and beyond a plan to bring their son back. 

Emma’s unease is infective, it reaches its tentacles towards Regina and invades her body. It leaves her needing Emma just as badly as Emma seems to be needing her. They have no time for this, they have no time for anything other than Henry, but she sighs and waves her hand and tries to ignore the glee she feels watching Neal’s sleeping form crumble to the ground.

Emma studies the movement of Regina’s hand intently and she barely spares a backwards glance at Neal before kneels beside their son. They do not touch, because it’s time that Henry doesn’t have, but both set of hands are on their son’s chest. He is their nexus. Their anchor.

“Well,” Regina says expectantly.

“Well what?” Emma asks as though she hadn’t wanted Regina to do this.

“Don’t play coy, we don’t have time.” Henry doesn’t have time. “Just say or do whatever it is that you wanted to say or do.”

“You’re wrong,” Emma says and if Henry’s life wasn’t at stake she wouldn’t bother to control the wave of magic that springs up inside of her and threatens to unleash itself on Emma and her obstinance. 

“We don’t have time for games, you can pretend you didn’t want me to do this if it makes you feel better but just tell me what you want from me.”

“Oh,” Emma’s forehead crinkles, “no, I totally wanted you to do it.” The blonde’s eyes dart towards Neal. “If I’d known how to do that I would have done it myself. I meant you were wrong about only having Henry. You know that’s not true.”

“It feels very true right now,” she pushes Henry’s bangs back and tries to tell herself that his body isn’t starting to feel cold. 

Emma looks heartbroken. “I never meant to do this to you. I never meant to do this to us.”

“You’ve been perfectly clear that I was the one who drove you to this,” Regina says curtly and refuses to look at Emma. She doesn’t need to see Emma’s face. She doesn’t need confirmation that she is a broken thing who ruins everything good in her life. 

“And I’m still terrified of what you might do. Still terrified that the weight of your sins is more important than I can ever be.” She still doesn’t look up but she can hear the tears in Emma’s voice.

“Not more important than you, more important than me,” she whispers.

“Which means I am going to have to worry every second of every day that I will lose you to your quest for absolution.”

“No one is asking you to do that,” she says through gritted teeth. Sometimes she feels like nothing gets to be hers. Her life, her son, even her pain; other people claim pieces of her that they have no right, nor reason, to want. Emma has so much more than she does so she shouldn’t be trying to take away the few scraps that Regina has left.

“I know but it’s not like I have choice.”

“You have nothing but choices,” Regina spits, “chose one of your admirers and leave me alone.”

“I don’t want them,” Emma asserts.

“It’s not my fault they are useless mongrels. You deserve the flea bites you will get from lying with them. You had a Queen, that should have been good enough for you.”

“I didn’t want the want the queen.”

“I’m well aware of that, dear,” she doesn’t need to be trifled with like this.

“I wanted the woman. I wanted you.” Her traitorous heart desperately wants to believe that’s true. She can’t stop her mindless organ from yearning for things but she can tell herself that it’s irrelevant. Whatever Emma’s motives may or may not be, they are meaningless. They don’t change the fact that things didn’t work and she resolves to push thoughts of what might have been from her mind until Emma grabs at her jacket and says, “I still do.”

“Don’t say that. Not now.” Regina swallows and tells herself that she needs to be strong.

Emma’s eyes fall closed and her lashes flutter while she takes a deep breath, “Now is as good a time as any. I keep hoping that there will be a good time for us but there never will.”

“Emma,” she is proud that her voice is reasonably steady, “the time to tell me that you want me is over.”

“I refuse to believe that,” Emma tells her and if they weren’t kneeling over the body of their fallen son she would claw Emma’s eyes out. 

“You are not as fucking irresistible as you think you are. You might be catnip to the morons circling around you but the neurons in my head actually connect.”

“This isn’t about arrogance,” Emma says in annoyance. 

“Oh really? Pray, tell me saviour, what is about?”

“If this is over then I was wrong,” Emma says and her words hang heavy in the air. 

"You are wrong about almost everything," Regina snips, "you can't possibly expect me to be able to narrow it down to a particular error."

"If there is no chance for us then I was wrong about how I thought you felt about me," Emma clarifies. "It means you never loved me the way I thought you did."

She should just leave it at that. She has the power to release them both, it’s the right thing to do, it’s the _only_ thing to do. Unfortunately she's not always capable of doing the things that she should. "You weren't wrong," she whispers the confession that can do nothing but destroy them. Emma threw her a life preserver and instead of grabbing it she has let them both drown. 

A tear falls onto her hand, she's not sure if it's hers or Emma's, but it causes her to look up. Emma's eyes lock onto hers. "Please let that be true," Emma begs. 

Emma has gifted her with another opening, and has even helpfully made herself look pathetic with her begging, but Regina squanders this opportunity as well, "Of course it's true, dear." She hears the steal in her voice, the part of her that was once the queen attempting to control the uncontrollable, but based on the widening of Emma's eyes it's the words and not their delivery that the other woman has heard. 

"Then why is this so hard?"

"You think love is meant to be easy?" she scoffs at Emma's naivety. 

"Well from what I hear all you really need to do is stumble around blindly and drone on and on about finding one another and you're all good," Emma offers with a smile. 

She laughs and then feels a crippling wave of guilt at being able to do so why Henry lies dying. "To be honest I'd be okay if we didn't model ourselves on your parents," she says dryly. 

"You and me both but it really does seem sickeningly easy for them."

"They are sickening in general," she says dismissively, "and I guess things can seem easy when you are too simple minded to understand that they are complex."

"If that’s the case then maybe I could solve things by giving us both head injuries." 

"You shouldn't waste what little intelligence you have, dear."

"I know you don't mean that," Emma gives her a lopsided grin.

"Intelligence is not to be wasted." 

"See, you admit I'm intelligent," Emma is somehow both obnoxious and adorable. 

"I admit you are smarter than your parents," she says with a sigh.

` "Way to set the bar high for me."

"I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself trying to jump over it."

“Worried that I'll hit my head and find a way to be happy without you?"

She can't breathe. It feels as though her whole world is disappearing. "If that's what you want."

"All I want is for things to be easier."

"They never are," her eyes drop involuntarily to their son.

"Maybe just a little bit easier then," Emma amends. 

"I'm not sure that possible."

"It was definitely a little easier back when all we were doing was frightening and fucking."

"Are you saying that you want to go back to that?"

"No!" Emma says vehemently. "Definitely not."

"Because if you would like I would definitely be willing to punch you," violence is festering inside of her, desperate to be released. 

"Only if you kiss me _all_ over in order to make it better."

That idea is more tempting than it should be and her fingers move towards Emma before she stops herself. Emma seems to understand because she removes her hands and places them behind her back. "I know we don't have time. We don't have time for anything," Emma says gravely as she looks at Henry, "but there are some things I really need to say. So much has happened while you were gone." 

"It will have to wait."

"Please," Emma implores in a way that is so like Henry that Regina is powerless to resist. She nods at Emma who takes a deep breath and then unleashes a tidal wave of babble. "Snow wants a baby and I shouldn't be but I'm angry and kinda jealous. They are going to make some perfect child to replace me and she was thinking about doing this while my child was missing." Emma's eyes flit to Henry but she doesn't pause, "They can keep their new family, I just want mine back. Also I told Neal that I wished he was dead. Oh and you'd be proud of me, maybe not as proud as the dead Neal thing would have made you but I still think you’d be happy, because I I made fire without you," Regina can feel her brow furrow and somehow through her windmilling arms and rapid fire words Emma notices because she slows as she says, "without you but because of you. Fuck knows the rest of them were no help. We were meant to be saving Henry and the guys were treating it like it was a completion to see who could get into my paints." Emma's words and arms are fast and flailing once again, "Like I'm like something to be won or earnt. The only competition that I'm interested in is the one where we and fight to overcomes our frighteningly large pile of insecurities and find a way to be together, really be together, because I didn’t make fire because I’m the saviour or even because I knew I needed to save Henry, I made fire because I thought of you. Everyone seems focused on my power, my magic, but the truth is that you are the magic one. The only truly magic thing about me is that sometimes, against your better judgement, you love me. We are going to save our son and we are going to get home and when we do, we are going to……” 

Emma words have been tumbling out like beautiful but crazy word vomit but in the blink of an eye she appears to have rendered herself mute. “What is it you want us to do, Miss Swan?” her voice is breathier than it has any right to be given the severity of the predicament facing them.

“Well we are going to do things properly and by we I guess I mean me. If you’ll let me, I want to do this better. You deserve better.”

“Better than what, Emma?” because although no one seems to agree, she deserves better than so many things that have happened in her life. 

“If I’d have known that this….. that we…..that I….,” Emma appears to be mentally berating herself as she squeeze her eyes tightly shut and shakes her head. “I don’t know if we’ll get a fairy tale ending, not because I think you’re a villain but because there are no guarantees with these things, but if had known how I was going to end up feeling, how important you’d become to me, I would have at least tried to give us a fairy tale beginning.”

“I’m not sure such a thing exists.”

“I could have,” Emma scratches at her own neck, “done something. I could have like bought you flowers, or told you you were beautiful or done something grand and romantic.” 

“What, like accidently slaying a dragon for me?”

“Well,” Emma says with a shrug, “I don’t exactly do that for all the girls.”

“You didn’t do that for me. You did that for Henry. As I recall your feelings about me at that time ran along the lines of wanting to burn me at the stake. I am fairly sure that the only beast you wanted to slay that day was me.”

“I never wanted you dead, not really.”

“I’d be lying if I said the same.”

Emma gives her a smile grin, “I know and it’s ridiculous how okay I am with that but the wanting to kill one another stuff just proves my point. Instead of all the screaming and scheming and screwing I should have been asking you out on a date.”

“Trust me, dear, there is no way I would have said yes. The screaming and scheming and screwing was a much better gambit,” Regina had meant this to be comforting, any other start would not have been successful, it was the intense combination of animosity and attraction that allowed Emma to get under her skin and ultimately into her heart, but Emma looks crestfallen.

“That’s all you thought I was good for? Screaming and screwing?”

“And scheming. We both did some impressive scheming.” She was far better at it the Emma but she lets Emma have her moment.

“How can you reduce this,” Emma swings her hand in a circle. “to plotting and yelling and sex?”

“Don’t say that like it’s an insult. All of those things were important. It had been decades since I’d bothered to scream like that at anyone and forever since I had had a worthy adversary. It made you way more infuriatingly intriguing than showing up on my doorstep with flowers ever could have. It was a far better tactic than asking me on a date would have been.”

“And now?” Emma looks at her from under her lashes.

“Once we defeat that selfish little bastard,” her skin stings with anger at the thought of him having possession of her baby boy’s heart, “I am sure that I’ll be able to find time to scream at you.”

“I meant would you go on a date with me now?”

“I don’t think Neverland has any appropriate venues.”

“Don’t be difficult, you know what I mean.” Regina bites her tongue because it’s too easy and too tempting to reply with the first thing that comes into her head but to do so ignores the reality of their situation. Emma wants to change things about her that can’t be changed and that if she stopped trying to do better then she wouldn’t be deserving of Emma anyway. Emma apparently takes her silence as an answer and the blonde wraps her arms around her midsection, as though she is trying to hold herself together, as she says, “It’s okay, it was a long shot anyway.”

“No,” Regina replies before her brain has time to notice what her foolish mouth is up to. 

“I get it,” Emma says, “you don’t have to rub it in.”

“No,” Regina cries, “I meant yes. Yes I would.”

“Really?”

Emma’s request is so pointless and banal that she should laugh. They a pawns in curses and prophecies, mechanisms put in place long before they were born control their destinies, and Emma Swan, bless her crazy soul, thinks that the way to combat that is go on a date. It’s so simple, so mundane, that she wants to scoff but right now she is trying to ignore the reality that she could end up a childless mother and the mundane has a certain appeal. What does it matter if she agrees to this and Emma breaks her heart again? Without Henry she has no heart to break. If this will keep Emma on task and give them a chance to save Henry she is willing to accept that price. Still, it would not be becoming to be too eager. “Don’t make me think about it because I might change my mind.”

“When I said I didn’t know how to fix things that’s all me. That’s my issues. I don’t know how to fix me but I’m going to try because I don’t want to lose us. I don’t want this to be over. 

“I’m starting to regret my answer already.” 

“No you’re not,” Emma sounds cocky but her eyes are clouded with fear.

“Well apparently you are going to talk too much on this date and I can only imagine the cesspool full of health code violations and fries that you are a planning on treating me to.”

“If you’re that worried you can pick the establishment.”

“Oh my dear, you couldn’t afford the establishments that I’d pick.”

“Then it’s agreed, you’ll be paying.”

She goes to give Emma a quality death stare but when their eyes meet her foolish body betrays her. Her heart races and her mouth goes dry as she opens and closes it like a floundering fish. “Emma,” she manages to say in what she hopes is warning tone.  
Regina is not sure if her voice is as much of a failure as the rest of her body of if Emma simply doesn’t heed her warning but either way the blonde learns forward until their breath is mingling. “I really, really want to kiss you now.”

“Save it for our date Miss Swan.”

“I promise you, you won’t regret it.”

“Oh believe me, I already do.” 

It’s not a lie. She’s terrified that she is putting herself in a vulnerable position but there is no denying that her heart is a little bit lighter when Emma flashes her a smile and say, “Enough of this. Let’s go kick some ass.”


End file.
